Books published by publisher Ford. Press

THROUGH THE HAZE OF WAR COMES AN UNEXPECTED HERO.On the same day that France surrenders to the Nazis, Jack Mooney--a New Yorker, barely out of high school--hitches a ride to Montreal, where he enlists as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. The last thing he says to his little brother before leaving home is, "Don't forget me, kid."Two years later a telegram arrives: Jack, now a Spitfire pilot flying for the Royal Air Force, is missing in action somewhere in German-occupied Europe. With only the telegram to guide him, 12-year-old Tommy Mooney arms himself to the hilt: with a sling-shot, a boomerang, a bow and arrow set, and an indomitable sense of youthful optimism. Mounting his Schwinn bicycle, he heads for the Brooklyn Harbor, setting a course for London, England, where he plans to recruit Jack's British fiancée before continuing on to Nazi-occupied Belgium. Thus begins a journey that one reader calls, "A rattling, high concept, wartime adventure--with a wonderfully quirky and incredibly brave hero-narrator." Soon enough, hope turns to foreboding--as it begins to look as though Tommy is being deceived by the Gestapo, used in a plot to expose a Resistance network created to help downed airmen. "Bravery," he realizes, "is like teeth plaque. It takes time to build up." Hearkening back to the Hitchcock film, Saboteur, and the WWII era mysteries of Eric Ambler and Helen MacInnis, Telegram For Mrs. Mooney will introduce you to a truly likable, sometimes irascible, archetypal "everyman" hero. It's a edge-of-your-seat, hair-raising, nail-biter of an adventure. A novel with the power to invoke the fearless child within you.

Lenny Duncan is the unlikeliest of pastors. Formerly incarcerated, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make all the headlines, but Duncan sees something else at work--drawing a direct line between the church's lack of diversity and the church's lack of vitality. The problems the ELCA faces are theological, not sociological. But so are the answers.Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the future of Duncan's denomination and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church rejects the narrative of church decline and calls everyone--leaders and laity alike--to the front lines of the church's renewal through racial equality and justice.It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow in the revolutionary path of Jesus.Dear Church also features a discussion guide at the back--perfect for church groups, book clubs, and other group discussion.

"If there is one book Martin Luther King, Jr. has written that people consistently tell me has changed their lives, it is Strength to Love." So wrote Coretta Scott King. She continued: "I believe it is because this book best explains the central element of Martin Luther King, Jr.' s philosophy of nonviolence: His belief in a divine, loving presence that binds all life. That insight, luminously conveyed in this classic text, here presented in a new and attractive edition, hints at the personal transformation at the root of social justice: " By reaching into and beyond ourselves and tapping the transcendent moral ethic of love, we shall overcome these evils." In these short meditative and sermonic pieces, some of them composed in jails and all of them crafted during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights struggle, Dr. King articulated and espoused in a deeply personal compelling way his commitment to justice and to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversion that makes his work as much a blueprint today for Christian discipleship as it was then. Individual readers, as well as church groups and students will find in this work a challenging yet energizing vision of God and redemptive love.

For more than twenty-five years, The Student Bible Atlas has been a trusted companion for Bible students of all ages and interests. Clear, concise, colorful, and priced for any budget, there are nearly 100,000 copies in print!All of the best features of The Student Bible Atlas are retained in this beautiful new edition. The table of contents remains the same, as does the tone and content. The layout, however, is beautifuly redone, with new maps that convey essential information in a crisp, up-to-date way. It's a great atlas, now made even better!The Student Bible Atlas contains thirty maps covering both Old and New Testaments, a helpful index of place names, and a guide to the major archeology sites of the Middle East.The Bible is full of places and journeys: Abraham's epic journey from Ur to the land of Canaan; the Hebrews' journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land; Paul's pioneering series of missionary travels. All these and many more are covered in this invaluable and readily accessible Bible companion.

First published in 1987 by Fortress Press, this 20th anniversary edition of this classic bestseller includes a new Afterword from the author. Here, in narrative form, is an account of the activity of Jesus of Nazareth, scrupulously constructed so that it does not undercut the insights of New Testament scholarship. What makes it different from other such attempts is that Jesus never actually appears. What we find everywhere is his shadow, his effect. Such an approach avoids the usual pitfalls of the genre and lends this story - attributed to a fictitious narrator - an attraction, freshness, and power all its own. Tension and interest are maintained to the end, even for those sated with books about Jesus. Careful documentation in the footnotes shows how much of the narrative is based on ancient sources.

Lenny Duncan is the unlikeliest of pastors. Formerly incarcerated, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make all the headlines, but Duncan sees something else at work--drawing a direct line between the church's lack of diversity and the church's lack of vitality. The problems the ELCA faces are theological, not sociological. But so are the answers.Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the future of Duncan's denomination and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church rejects the narrative of church decline and calls everyone--leaders and laity alike--to the front lines of the churchÂs renewal through racial equality and justice.It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow in the revolutionary path of Jesus.

Monica A. Coleman's great-grandfather asked his two young sons to lift him up and pull out the chair when he hanged himself, and that noose stayed in the family shed for years. The rope was the violent instrument, but it was mental anguish that killed him. Now, in gripping fashion, Coleman examines the ways that the legacies of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism mask a family history of mental illness. Those same forces accompanied her into the black religious traditions and Christian ministry. All the while, she wrestled with her own bipolar disorder.Bipolar Faith is both a spiritual autobiography and a memoir of mental illness. In this powerful book, Monica Coleman shares her life-long dance with trauma, depression, and the threat of death. Citing serendipitous encounters with black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Angela Davis, and Renita Weems, Coleman offers a rare account of how the modulated highs of bipolar II can lead to professional success, while hiding a depression that even her doctors rarely believed. Only as she was able to face her illness was she able to live faithfully with bipolar.

Women in the Bible aren't shy or retiring; they're fierce and funny and demanding and relevant to 21st-century people.Women in the Biblesome of their names we know, others we've only heard, and others are tragically unnamed.Pastor and provocateur Alice Connor introduces these women and invites us to see them not as players in a man's storyas victims or temptersnor as morality archetypes, teaching us to be better wives and mothers, but as fierce foremothers of the faith.These women's stories are messy, challenging, and beautiful. When we read their stories, we can see not only their particular, fearsome lives but also our own.

Tommy Mooney--back in England after his adventures in Telegram For Mrs. Mooney--goes with his brother's fiancée to RAF Rochford, where he begins to suspect that a Nazi spy is working mischief at the base. Airmen are mysteriously wounded, Spitfires are sabotaged, someone has been poisoning the food. No one escapes Tommy's radar, especially after Daphne falls ill and is hospitalized. That night the base is attacked, setting off a chain of events that will either prove Tommy to be a fool or a hero. Hearkening back to the Hitchcock film, Saboteur, and the WWII era mysteries of Eric Ambler and Helen MacInnis, Message For Hitler is narrated by a truly likable, sometimes irascible, archetypal "everyman" hero. It's a edge-of-your-seat, hair-raising, nail-biter of an adventure. A novel with the power to invoke the fearless child within you.

Tommy Mooney—a hero after his adventures in Nazi-occupied Europe and wartime Britain—is back at Warfield Hall in England when he gets a call from his friend Daphne. “We’ve a letter from Paris,” she says. “A very odd sort of letter.” The letter, written in invisible ink, is from their Parisian friend, begging them to help find her sister Sophie, who has gone missing. There is no way that Daphne is returning to German-occupied Europe. Unless, that is, Tommy can find a way to drag her there.A mystery involving a stolen masterpiece, communist Resistance members, and a foolhardy attempt on the life of Hermann—the rat-fink—Göring, leader of the Luftwaffe.Hearkening back to the Hitchcock film, Saboteur, and the WWII era mysteries of Eric Ambler and Helen MacInnis, Letter Via Paris continues a series featuring a truly likable, sometimes irascible, archetypal “everyman” hero.

Kent Dobson climbed Mount Sinai in search of the God who had eluded him. Instead he got bitten by a camel. Dobson was climbing the ladder of Christianity, too: a worship leader, teacher, and ultimately senior pastor of one of the largest and most prominent churches in America. But he was growing disillusioned with the faith, at least inside the shell of organized religion.